Working on the farm, or "Catherine Halsey's School for Gifted Youngsters" as one mysterious Spartan (everybody knew good and damn well it was Fred, cause he was the only one who got the reference at first) put up on a sign on the road out of the compound, wasn't as bad as she expected at first.
Oh, it was still bad, don't get her wrong. It took time to get the equipment and materials she put orders in for, she didn't have a team of researchers backing her…
Plus, she had to learn how to do… farm work. The phrase alone made her shutter.
Tending fucking fields with seventy five impulsive kids, God… More than a few times, she'd gone outside, wanting to get the work for the day done and over with, only to find the Spartans down in the dirt, running "training" exercises, or otherwise acting like fools. Manual labor didn't scare her.
The teenagers did.
So. Many. Ruined. Clothes.
Lab coats, despite being designed for absorbing hazardous chemicals and protecting against them, was not good at protecting against dirt splatters from hard work. She learned that the first day, where she had to suffer with the rest of the teenagers in getting their new abode livable, and wound up falling into the dirt more than a couple of times.
But, she suffered through it. Stiff upper lip, and all that. Plus, she didn't have a choice. She couldn't very well abandon them all.
…even if they'd probably still be just fine, in the end.
That didn't mean she liked it though. She was a scientist-her work was theoretical, not physical. That's what the grunts and research associates were for.
"Hey!" An indignant voice reverberated in the air, and Halsey sighed. She looked up, turning to find Mike standing, looking around. "Where the hell is John!?"
The ten other Spartans-which should have been eleven, not including John himself, and Mike since he brought it up, making fourteen working together in this section-looked around, searching for him. A cursory examination led Halsey to notice that Samuel was missing as well.
So, the usual suspects, then. Halsey sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose, figuring that if she looked around, then Kelly, Fred, and Linda would probably turn up missing as well.
A breeze kicked up, followed by the steadily-increasing sound of helicopter rotors. The scientist-turned-reluctant farmer looked up, seeing a Falcon come in for a landing.
Great. As if she didn't already have enough to deal with.
She hoped, whatever Blue Team was getting into, it was worth it.
"Sam, don't do it, man." Fred anxiously told the teenager, watching as his friend stood across from a Moa. Sam's arms were splayed wide, making himself look even bigger to the flightless bird. "This is stupid, you're gonna die."
"For once, Fred and I are on the same page," Kelly stood nearby, crossing her arms. "This is dumb as hell."
"No, it's not!" Sam retorted, keeping his gaze focused on the creature, the ostrich-like animal cluelessly pecking the ground. "Moa live all in these hills! Perfect food source…"
"Which is why we should let Linda take them down from a distance." Kelly shook her head.
"And waste precious ammo?" Sam replied, "Nah," He turned back to the bird, "I'm gonna get this thing bare-handed." Then, he began walking toward it.
"Oh my God," Kelly groaned, looking to John, "Stop him, damn it!"
"No, don't, stop." John monotonously threw at Sam. Expectedly, the other boy ignored him, and he shrugged, turning to Kelly. "I tried."
The Moa raised its head, the big, beady eye darting around. It locked onto Sam, the Spartan and the animal sharing a moment of eye contact, before it squawked, and tried to run.
"Oh, no you don't!" Sam shouted, leaping onto the animal's back. He bounced as the horse-sized bird charged across the countryside, unable to pull himself into a better position, or do much more than hold on.
"…welp, he's gone to live with the Moa." Linda snarked, turning to leave. "We tried to stop him, let's go."
John sighed, his shoulders slumping as he shook his head. "No. We should make sure he doesn't get himself killed." He looked to the other three, gesturing for them to follow. "Come on. If we work quickly, we should be able to get back in a timely manner."
The rest of Blue Team shook their heads, but easily fell into line, following John after their friend.
"Chief Mendez," Halsey politely addressed, a hint of bitterness nevertheless present in her low staccato, "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
The military man crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow. "A trainer can't pop in to check his recruits from time to time?"
"Given that ONI reassigned us separately and is doing all they can to make my life a living hell, no." Halsey retorted, leaning back against the wall. "Why are you here, Franklin? Really?"
"Officially, it's you're a high-value asset and ONI wants to make sure you're not out here starving to death." Mendez answered. "Unofficially, this is your 'surprise inspection.'"
"And they sent you?" Halsey questioned, turning her head away. "Heaven help me."
"I requested the assignment," Mendez replied, "Like it or not, these kids were my trainees too. Is that a problem?"
"Oh, no, no problem!" Halsey sardonically replied. "In fact, please, take over from me for a little while! I could use the rest after having to deal with a bunch of emotionally repressed teenagers who don't know how to act properly outside of military situations!" She snapped, not realizing that she'd been screaming until the echoes reached her ears, leaving her standing there, breathing heavily in the silence.
Mendez glanced around, the Spartans averting their gazes from his in shame.
A few moments later, a Moa came running through, Samuel clinging to its back, before he finally let go, dropping to the ground. It sprinted away, before the rest of Blue Team caught up, out of breath despite their training.
"Whew, that was fun." Sam grinned, looking up. "Oh, hey Chief!"
Mendez glanced at Halsey. "Maybe this is a conversation we should be having behind closed doors."
"I don't know what to do." Halsey groaned, slamming her head on the table. "The day we left, they were all nice, perfect, disciplined people… then we get off-base, and it turns into the wild jungle out there!"
"I think you're exaggerating-"
"Day one," The woman furiously retorted, "Will decided to eat a maggot-infested corpse for no other reason than he wanted to. Bedridden for the next week. Blue Team sans Sam found an ancient muscle car and got it onto the roof of a farmhouse. Day one, Franklin. Day two, I awaken to find half of them laid out in the mud because they got into the wine cellar. Day three, and one of them's managed to roll a combine harvester onto its roof. The first week, Franklin."
"…they never behaved like this during training." Mendez replied after a moment.
"No!" Halsey snapped, a vein on her forehead bulging. "During training, they had a goal, a purpose! Their skills were being honed to fight the enemy, and now they don't have it…" She croaked, falling forward. "We chose them because they had these psychological quirks, effective if turned against our enemies. Without an outlet, it's all coming out at once, and now they're… acting out." She limply shrugged. "I can't do this, Mendez. Seventy-five kids… Jesus Christ…"
"You can," He retorted, "You have to. They look up to you, they'll listen."
"No they won't!" She furiously retorted, her head shooting up. Halsey's eyes widened as she took a breath, pointing at him. "You…"
Mendez immediately shook his head, understanding already what she was about to ask. "No."
"But they look up to you as well!" Halsey began, gesturing at him. "You're their trainer, you could get them into line-"
"I can't." Mendez held steadfast.
"You can't, or you just don't want to?" Halsey angrily retorted.
"Both." Mendez answered, standing calmly. "I can't because I'm needed elsewhere. They want me on security for our diplomatic attaches to our new alien friends. And even if I could, I wouldn't. It's not my place. You-"
"Yes, yes, I know; the whole damn thing is my fault." She cut him off with a growl, looking down. "My work, my program, my responsibility. It has to be me." Halsey looked up, a furious fire in her eyes. "But would it kill for ONI to give me some support?"
"I think you already have everything you need, Doctor." Mendez retorted, looking out to the Spartans outside. "They look up to you, they'll listen to you. It might take some effort on your part, but you can do this."
"I can't." She refuted, shaking her head. "Not alone."
"You'll find a way." He replied, turning to exit. "Goodbye, Doctor."
Halsey watched as he exited, shooting him the bird as he left.
…yeah, she'd find a way. Hell, she already had a plan.
Halsey liked working in a darkened lab. Sure, it was a bit too Frankenstein for most scientists, but it suited Catherine perfectly well. Plus, with it being late at night, it would serve well to hide her progress from any nosey Spartans that might try to spy on her.
If they even could, what with her being in a basement and all.
She'd been hasty in assuming ONI wouldn't notice her attempts to procure lab equipment, but it didn't matter. Halsey had everything she needed, and had done a few quick diagnostics on it for good measure. Everything was in working order, perfect for her to continue her work.
Not with the Spartan augmentations, no. Even if she had the resources to do so, her conscience wouldn't allow it. No, this was a… different project.
Halsey was still a scientist at heart, looking to advance the cause of science, even if she was stuck on a farm.
Right now, though, her focus was on refinement rather than advancement. Specifically, the sort of refinement that would make her life easier in the long run.
Flash-cloning herself in the basement of a farm complex in the highland mountains, with an impromptu tank and memory-imprinting device cobbled together from parts from a dozen different sources. Risky business, given the punishment illegal flash-cloning carried.
Not that she was worried she'd be caught. She knew how to cover her tracks. Assuming that Mendez was telling the truth about it just being a surprise inspection, she had nothing to worry about. Assuming he wasn't, or just ignorant, and ONI had noticed the deliveries-if they traced them back to the source, ONI would just find a wholesale food warehouse, and assume that she was just having difficulties getting this new farm off the ground.
The plan was this: Clone herself, give the clone memory imprints, then take turns swapping in and out, one forwarding the cause of science, the other keeping the Spartans from getting themselves killed following impulsive stupidity.
Easy!
That's what she did one dark night, in the basement of the main building. She hunched over a control terminal, feeding it commands all the while. A body was shaped in a nearby vat, affected by carefully-measured doses of chemicals and hormones. The chemical cocktail she was feeding it was an experimental mixture, designed to minimize the chance of rapid deterioration.
Midway through the process, however, she fell asleep at the controls. She was human, after all, and still subject to the same pitfalls as everyone else.
Endlessly frustrating. There was an implant she'd designed that could disperse caffeine directly into her bloodstream. She should've looked into fabricating it.
Nevertheless, despite the reasons for her falling into the throes of sleep, whether it was simply bad luck or her body being pushed to its limits, when Halsey woke up, the sequence was complete.
Looking over to the tank, she expected to find a mirror-image of herself floating inside. There was, in a way, only much smaller, and younger. A teenager.
"Oh, for God's sake…" Halsey groaned, looking at the nearby terminal for an explanation. She expected to find one, any answer she could get for why her very-well-put-together and not-at-all-cobbled flash cloning tank didn't complete the process, but there wasn't.
No error logs, no warnings in the output. Human error was the culprit, not a failure of the tech.
Halsey rubbed her face in frustration, feeling that the environment was already compromising her ability to continue her scientific efforts (though for a brief second in the half-asleep haze, she wondered exactly what nebulous goal she was trying to pursue, other than science for the sake of science).
Her hand hovered over the button, ready to initiate a recycling sequence for the tank's contents, wherein the clone would be broken down into the base acids and proteins that made up human life, and put back in to be redone, but her hand froze over the control.
It was a completed clone, and judging by the scans, the brain mapping was complete.
…it would be a waste to just recycle a perfectly good clone. Besides, she'd have all of Halsey's memories, and if you couldn't trust yourself, who could you trust.
After a second, Halsey hit the button to flush the tank, the fluids inside draining, depositing the flash-cloned girl onto her feet. The limp body slid down the glass of the tank, and Halsey opened the door, reaching in and hefting the teenage duplicate of herself out.
There seemed to already be some brain activity present, as Halsey's contact roused the 'newborn,' causing her to mumble quietly.
"Quando il gioco è finito, il re e il pedone vanno nella stessa scatola." The clone mumbled, showing impressive verbal skills despite being, you know, just brought into existence.
Halsey wrapped the duplicate in a blanket, trying to preserve some dignity for her young copy before she hauled her upstairs through the common areas.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Having someone around to share her burdens would do great for her own morale.
…and to be honest, part of her always wanted a biological child of her own.